


a smile for every moment

by colazitron



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Cooking, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23301874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: It's Laura's birthday, and David's making brunch.
Relationships: Matteo Florenzi/David (Druck)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 111





	a smile for every moment

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: 400 years later, for anon who asked for "flirty hands-on teaching" and "preparing food for the love interest". This isn't technically speaking either of those things; I'm so sorry.

David is not, he will readily admit, a good cook.

Though in his defence, that is largely due to the fact that he's not a very experienced cook. When he still lived with his parents, neither of them were very big on cooking, or at least not on cooking often. Dad actually loved it, but his parents were what he's certain is only fair to call workaholics. They weren't home a lot, and David and Laura lived off of ready-made frozen meals and delivery more than home-cooking. Occasionally their dad would make huge, elaborate dinners on Sundays or holidays or birthdays. And eventually Laura learned how to make simple pasta dishes, but David usually just watched her, pushed aside by a sister who felt responsible for him and also liked having control over situations.

So now he finds he's eighteen years old and honestly doesn't really know the first thing about cooking.

It's Laura's birthday though, and he's decided he wants to make her breakfast. Or brunch. Laura is a big breakfast person, loves sitting for hours, eating and sipping on coffee, chatting over the table. They used to do it a lot before she moved out, and they got back into the habit once he moved in with her.

Occasionally, Matteo joins them, and sometimes they'll both cook a little something while David watches, the conversation and meal taking them through the whole morning and right through noon. But it's Laura's birthday and while he doesn't have a lot of money to buy her any elaborate gifts, he can make her a nice breakfast and spend some time with her.

He's approached it methodically, looked up recipes that seemed simple and easy to follow, written shopping lists and bought groceries that he mostly stored at Matteo's place and brought over last night in his backpack. And now he's got his alarm, dragging him out of sleep far earlier than he'd usually wake up on a Saturday so things will be ready by the time Laura wakes up, and Matteo groaning next to him at the noise.

“Why,” he mumbles into the pillow, arm lax where it's thrown over David's hip. David presses a kiss to his hair and then slips out from underneath his arm to turn the alarm off.

“'s it breakfast time?” Matteo asks groggily, blinking one bleary eye open to squint at David in the morning light.

David hums in confirmation and then leans down again to kiss his cheek. “You can sleep some more. I got this.”

Matteo was teasing David about it just last night, about how he doesn't usually know what he's doing in the kitchen and probably only knows which end of the knife to hold because one's sharp and pointy, and one is not. But now he takes David at his word and snuggles back into the pillows.

“Okay. Come get me if you need me.”

David is determined not to need him, and Matteo is back asleep before he's fully dressed and snuck out of the room, his backpack full of foodstuff slung over one shoulder. He's been careful not to take on too much, so he's only making blueberry muffins and shakshuka. He's got some bread, some spreads, some cheese, but the only thing he'll actually be making are the muffins and the shakshuka. Matteo had loyally agreed he should be fine with those two on his own, but he hadn't really bothered to hide the sceptical expression on his face.

It's fine.

This is fine.

David has got this.

The cheese and stuff he already snuck into the fridge last night, so he only checks on that still being there and undisturbed, hiding behind a half-empty jar of pickles neither of them really eat often and David isn't sure why they have, and a some condiment bottles. Then he gets out his phone to pull up the recipes he bookmarked, and gets to work.

The muffins first, probably, since they need to go in the oven anyway, and that'll give him time to make the shakshuka.

Ha.

Easy.

It takes him a moment to find the large bowls and the scale he knows Laura keeps somewhere, and then the muffin tin, but eventually he's got everything lined up neatly on the counter and gets to work. He makes sure to read everything twice, double checking as he goes, stirring meticulously and yet somehow still getting flour practically everywhere. It's a little frustrating, but in the end, though the kitchen looks decidedly messier than he'd anticipated, he's got six little muffins chilling in the small muffin tray, just waiting to go into the oven. He even remembered to preheat that and feels a little proud of himself when he slides the little tray in.

The counter needs cleaning before he can go on, so he gets that done and then pulls up the other recipe, grabbing and lining up his ingredients.

He starts by de-seeding the first bell pepper, which is annoying and takes longer than he thought. Laura always makes it look easy, but the stupid seeds get stuck to everything and David can feel himself glaring down at the cutting board by the time he's got them all off and safely deposited on a piece of paper kitchen towel along with the stem and the seedpod, or whatever that is that they cling to. He's still got two peppers to go and doesn't feel great about it, but he grabs for another one anyway.

Before he can grab for the knife too, the floor creaks behind him, and when he turns around Matteo slinks up behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him into a hug.

“Morning,” he mumbles, peppering a few kisses to David's neck and shoulder before pulling them even more closely together and resting his chin on David's shoulder. “How's it going?”

“These are annoying,” David says, but doesn't make Matteo move away before he picks the knife back up and sets about cutting off the top of the pepper so he can pull the middle bit with all the seeds out.

Matteo hums and watches him for a bit, but when David puts the knife back down, he reaches for David's hands to stop him.

“There's an easier way to do this. Want me to show you?”

David can feel himself pout, but then sighs, slumping a little against Matteo. “Yeah. Please.”

“Okay, so pick the knife back up and cut the stem off first, so it's not in the way.”

David does as instructed and throws the stem over onto the paper kitchen towel, waiting.

Matteo puts his hands over David's on the knife and the pepper, holding tight when David tries to let go to let him show him what to do.

“No, I'm going to guide you. Okay?” Matteo suggests.

David huffs a laugh. “Not sure that's going to work, but okay.”

“It'll work,” Matteo says confidently, his chin still hooked over David's shoulder.

“Okay, so you want to put the pepper on its side like this,” Matteo says, pushing at it under David's hands until it's resting more or less stable on its side. David laughs a little, but pays attention, especially when Matteo brings their hands with the knife over. “And then you want to cut off the sides, rolling as you go, so it's one long cut. You get it?”

David nods, knowing that Matteo can feel it.

“We'll go slow,” Matteo says and then brings the knife down into the side of the pepper. They have to go slow, because their combined movements are unwieldy and a little sloppy, and David pushes down the giggles he can feel bubbling up in his throat.

“You need to sharpen your knife,” Matteo grumbles, half to himself, but they get it done, and most of the seeds actually are still in their place and not sticking to either the knife or the board or the pepper itself.

Matteo lets go so David can deposit the waste to the side and then slips away entirely. “Do you have a whet stone of some sort?”

“A whet stone?” David repeats, incredulous, looking up at where Matteo is pulling out drawers and rifling through their kitchen things.

“Yeah, something to sharpen the knives with?” Matteo looks up, brows pulling together. “You do sometimes sharpen your knives, right?”

“Uh,” David says. He really has no idea. “I don't know?”

Matteo sighs and continues his search, but David is on a deadline, so he goes back to chopping the bell pepper.

Eventually, Matteo makes a triumphant little noise and when David looks up, he's brandishing something that David would not have recognised to be for sharpening knives in a hundred years.

“Give me the knife,” Matteo says, holding out a hand. David, knowing a silly and superfluous argument he won't win when he sees one, sighs and does.

“If I cut myself with your newly sharpened knife, I'll be so mad at you,” David says, watching Matteo rinse the knife.

Matteo rolls his eyes at him and then holds out his hand for David to hand him the dish towel.

“There are actually more accidents with dull blades than sharp ones, because you're more likely to slip. And the cuts heal faster if they're from a sharp knife too, because they'll be thinner.”

David snorts a laugh. “Okay, masterchef.”

Matteo pokes his tongue out at him, and then drags the blade of the knife through the slit in the thing he's dug out of their kitchen drawer a few times. It does make a sort of scraping sound that sounds like things are probably getting done, but David's pretty sure Matteo is full of shit when he scrapes the pad of his thumb over the edge of the knife and then deems it sharp enough,

Matteo hands him back the knife and then slips back up behind him, pressing close again.

“Well then, show me what you learned,” he says and David tries to do with the third bell pepper what Matteo just showed him. It's at least no sloppier than what they did when they were trying to do it together, and Matteo makes praising humming noises and presses a kiss to David's shoulder when he's setting the seedpod aside again.

“Pull in your fingers,” he says when David sets to chopping, and David sighs.

“What do you mean 'pull in my fingers', I need to hold it, don't I?”

“Yeah, but with round fingers, not like you're putting them on display to chop them off more easily.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” David asks, bristling a bit. He'd been doing fine at this bit, actually, thank you very much.

“Okay, look, let me,” Matteo says, hands sneaking past David's waist and worming in between his and the knife and the pepper this time.

“Put your hands over mine, feel what I'm doing, okay?”

David does, curling his fingers on top of Matteo's.

“You need to grip the knife nearer to the blade; your pointer finger can be on it, so you can guide it better,” Matteo explains quietly, voice low and intimate right by David's ear. His fingers are warm and dry underneath David's, his chin a little pointy over his shoulder. But his body is warm and close behind him, and for a moment David forgets he's stood in his kitchen to make his sister breakfast for her birthday, falling into the bubble that always seems to pop up around them when they're close and alone. “And the fingers of your other hand should curl down, so the tips of your fingers go in. A bit like typing, or playing the piano.”

“You don't play the piano,” David says, because he's pretty sure Matteo doesn't. It would have come up, surely.

“Not the point, babe,” Matteo says and David feels himself blush against all reason. They've been together for almost a year. There's really no reason to get all flustered over a stupid petname that Matteo pulls out then and again, and usually only when he's teasing David a little bit.

“So, curled fingers. Tuck your thumb behind them and make sure your pinkie isn't sticking out like this is some fancy tea party or something.”

David snorts another laugh, but tucks his fingers closely over Matteo's.

“And then you sort of, like...” Matteo says, and slices into the bell pepper with a slow, smooth motion that David's only ever watched before. It feels rhythmic, the way he moves the knife, back and forth and up and down in a way that's almost circular, or like a pendulum.

David watches him slice the whole strip of bell pepper into slim, almost even slices before speaking up again.

“Where did you learn all this anyway?”

Matteo is quiet for a moment, flipping the knife over and pushing the cut pieces to the side with the back of the blade.

“My dad. He's a chef, actually.”

David freezes for a moment and then presses back a little into Matteo's body. That's actually genuinely something he didn't know. Matteo doesn't really ever talk about his dad, and when he does, it's usually in vague terms that outline a silhouette of a man but never give any details.

“He is?”

“Yeah. He used to work the evening shift when I was little, so my mum and I had to be really quiet in the mornings. She'd always turn it into a game to get me to play along,” Matteo says. “Sometimes dad would bring home leftover desserts from the restaurant he worked at and my mum and I would eat them for breakfast right out of the containers.”

“That sounds nice,” David says quietly.

“It was. I know when I talk about my parents it doesn't sound great usually, but when I was little… it was pretty amazing,” Matteo sighs. “Anyway, when my dad was watching me while my mum was at work after school or even kindergarten, I think, he used to let me help him cook. I loved it.”

Matteo puts the knife down and wraps his arms around David's middle instead, hiding his face in his shoulder.

“You miss him?” David asks, putting his hands on Matteo's arms and squeezing a little.

Matteo groans. “I don't know. I think it's mostly, like, nostalgia.”

David hums a little. He doesn't have much nostalgia about his own childhood, but there are some moments that feel precious even now. He imagines standing next to his father in the kitchen, learning how to cook, would be one of them, if it had ever happened.

They stay like that for another moment or two, before Matteo lifts his face from the back of David's shoulder again and slips his arms out of his grip. “Anyway, we have a breakfast to make for your sister.”

“You think I can chop this onion by myself?” David asks with a grin, turning half over his shoulder to meet Matteo's eyes.

Matteo exaggerates a shrug, palms turned up towards the ceiling like the human embodiment of the shrug emoji. “Guess you'll just have to give it a go.”

“Guess I will,” David agrees and turns back around. Matteo steps close again, leaning against his back and wrapping his arms around David's middle.

“By the way, when's the timer for the muffins going off? They smell good.”

David almost drops the knife, jerking upright and looking over at the oven. “Fuck! I didn't set a timer.”

“You dumbass,” Matteo chides with a laugh and steps away from David towards the oven. “Hand me that dish towel?”

David does, and Matteo opens the oven door, squatting down to peer into it. It does smell deliciously like cake, even over the scent of chopped bell pepper hanging in the air.

“They look good,” Matteo says, reaching in with the dish towel folded up and covering his hand to pull the muffin tin out. “Totally not burned.”

They're a little dark, maybe, but they really don't look burned, so David lets himself grin proudly, even when Matteo mimes a teasing expression of shock.

“Fuck off,” David says, but there's laughter in his voice, so he really can't blame Matteo for not taking him seriously and coming back over to plaster himself to his back again instead when he's set the muffin tin down on the stove top.

David picks up the knife again, but before he can even pick up the onion, Matteo squeezes him tight and says, “Don't cut off the butt.”

David snorts a laugh. “The what?”

“The butt,” Matteo says. “The bit where the roots come out.”

“That's the butt?”

“Well, it's the part that faces down. The other part is obviously the head, cause it faces up.”

David hums. “Obviously.”

“Just don't cut it off, asshole. It'll be easier to chop if you don't.”

“If you say so,” David says, but only cuts off the 'head' before peeling the onion.

“Now half it lengthwise through the butt,” Matteo says. David can hear the grin in his voice. “You want some butt on each piece. That'll hold it together when you chop.”

David sighs and rolls his eyes, biting down on a grin. “Want to just show me, Chef Florenzi?”

Matteo does, slicing through the onion cleanly and then demonstrating how to chop it.

“See? Much easier.”

“Show off,” David complains, but Matteo only laughs at him and then lets him get through the rest of his chopping without comment.

“You know,” he says, when David has everything bubbling away gently on the stove, the muffins stored far away from any potential tomato sauce splashes, dirty dishes stacked in the dishwasher, “I think I get why you like watching me cook now.”

“Oh, really?” David asks, wiping his wet hands off on the dish towel and turning to where Matteo's leaning against the counter, picking at a slice of bread he'd cut himself.

“It's kinda sexy, watching your hands work, and knowing you can feed yourself in a pinch,” he teases.

“In a pinch, huh,” David echoes, putting the towel down and reaching out to pull Matteo in by the hips, wrapping his arms around his back when they collide gently.

“In a pinch,” Matteo grins. “I mean, it'd take you a while, but you'd get there in the end.”

“So very kind of you.”

Matteo's grin widens, eyes glittering with mirth. “You're almost perfect trophy husband material.”

David snorts a laugh and ducks his head, biting at Matteo's shoulder.

“Fuck you,” he mumbles into Matteo's sweatshirt, and squeezes him a little more tightly. As punishment.

Matteo hums contently and squeezes back. “No time for that, I'm afraid.”

“Idiot,” David complains, but when Matteo reaches for his face to pull him up into a kiss, he goes easily.

M atteo's mouth still tastes a bit like sleep, like he didn't brush his teeth before coming to join David in the kitchen, but then neither did David, so it's not like he can point fingers. And anyway, his skin is warm under David's fingers where he strokes them over Matteo's neck and along his hairline before he drags his nails over Matteo's scalp and pulls him closer with one arm behind his neck, and kissing Matteo is  still and  always the sweetest thing David has ever known. There's no way he could ever get enough of it, of the way it feels to be so close to him, to feel his mouth so soft underneath his own, the way their breathing goes a little heavier the longer they go on. Matteo's arms tightening around him or his hands squeezing at David's waist.

Kissing Matteo is definitely in David's top three favourite things to do.

“Well, happy birthday to me,” Laura drawls, and David pulls away from Matteo with a flinch and stares over at her standing in the doorway to the kitchen with her arms folded but a grin on her face. “Thanks for rubbing it in, guys.”

“Uh,” David says sheepishly, but Matteo laughs.

“You're welcome.” It's a lot easier to get away with being a little shit when it's not to your own sister and she probably won't try to wrestle you over it.

Laura laughs and gives Matteo a little shove but then curiously eyes the kitchen counter. “What's all this?”

Matteo steps away, sidling up next to her and then gestures at the counter and David with an exaggeratedly grand gesture. “David is making brunch.”

Laura's eyes widen just enough for David to think he should probably feel insulted.

“Is he really?” she asks, and then turns to Matteo with a grin, elbowing him in the side. “Or did you make it and he's taking the credit?”

Matteo laughs, but then shakes his head and beams over at David, both so proud and  so  soft that David feels his cheeks flush. Ugh.

“Nope, he did it all himself.”

Laura looks suitably impressed, and then comes over to pull David into a hug. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, well,” David says helplessly. “Happy Birthday.”

Laura laughs and presses a smacking kiss to his hair. “Alright, then. Matteo and I'll set the table. You do your thing.”

David's about to protest, but Laura has already turned away to grab plates from their cupboard, so it's no use. Matteo slides an arm around him to pull him into a quick hug before going for the cups.

“Don't forget about the eggs,” he mumbles and presses a kiss to David's cheek before joining Laura at the table.

The eggs? But the muffins are already do--- oh fuck, right. The eggs.

David cracks eggs into the tomato-bell-pepper sauce bubbling on the stove and then looks up when Laura laughs at something Matteo must have said to her. The sun's streaming in through the windows behind them and it's going to be spring soon. The flowers in the vase are wilting a little but they're still nice, and his two very favourite people are here and happy.

For a first foray into brunch-making, it's not bad.

Really not bad at all.

  
  


** The End **


End file.
